Tick
by Chloe Silvers
Summary: Prompt: Stiles passes by the grave of Derek's parents after leaving his mom's and something makes him stop and visit. He talks about Derek and what's been happening and he feels better so he keeps going back. Derek catches him.


Prompt by the wonderful Bella8876: Stiles passes by Laura's/Derek's parents grave after leaving his moms and something makes him stop and visit. He talks about Derek and what's been happening and he feels better so he keeps going back. Derek catches him. Up to you what he does.

Tick

It felt like all around him, there were monthly cycles. Scott and Derek turned into werewolves, Lydia and Allison had their, you know, periods. It wasn't as if Stiles was jealous of the girls losing their minds and becoming crimes scenes in their pants or anything, no thanks. But he did had a monthly cycle of his own even if he didn't turn into a beast with fangs.

So if they were all lined up, like for a competition or something, that would be the feather in his cap, so to speak. Except nobody knew about it, which honestly wasn't entirely his fault. It was just never the right time to squish it into a conversation with Dad or Scott.

Picturing how it would go with his Dad just made him feel ashamed and guilty, and picturing the conversation with Scott made him cringe a little bit.

'Hey man, full moon's coming up and I'm going to turn into a crazy wolf with surprisingly no body hair and potentially kill someone. Cover for me if coach has any questions?'

'Sure, no problem. I'm visiting my dead mom's grave tonight anyway. Meet up in the morning before homeroom?'

It wasn't exactly an ideal situation. Besides, he didn't like the pity looks he got as a kid whenever someone found out what happened, and he definitely didn't need that crap now.

Turning a perfectly good conversation awkward in two seconds flat before they fumbled around and started saying how sorry they were wasn't a desirable super power. It was understandable that they wouldn't have anything else to say, but seriously, stop apologizing.

She didn't die because of them.

Truth be told, Stiles had surprised himself the first time that he showed up here. It was Scott's first full-moon, and he found him making out with Lydia at school. Which was one thing. If Scott had apologized about it, begged for forgiveness, it might not have been too bad. He probably wouldn't have ended up here.

But Scott hadn't. Instead of fighting what was going on, instead of trying to control it somehow, he taunted Stiles about it to drive him crazy on purpose. Scott described every detail, because he wanted Stiles to unlock the door and attack him. Scott wanted a fight because he knew that Stiles would lose and that he would be able to escape.

Scott wanted Stiles to get rid of the cuffs and say that he didn't care about what would happen to him. Scott just wanted a fight and an escape, and they both knew it. It took all of the willpower that Stiles had to keep that door shut and to keep it together when Scott finally broke out on his own.

When the full moon went away and everybody turned back into humans again, Stiles was still mad. He got in his Jeep and started driving. He didn't even realize that he knew how to get to the cemetery to begin with, didn't realize that he knew where the tombstone was until he was right in front of it, crying, screaming, and saying how unfair everything was to an inanimate object.

The trips stopped being about emotional vulnerability and more about routine after he picked himself back up and drove back home before his Dad showed up. The trips stopped feeling as good as they had that night when Stiles came to the conclusion that if his mom was still alive, she would be as in the dark about things as his dad was.

So it wasn't as if he was telling her the truth about anything. If he did, he'd be living an illusion of what things would be like if she were alive, and he didn't want to start liking a process that wouldn't even be real if things had worked out differently.

He kept coming back when he shouldn't have because even though he felt only marginally better about things, it was better than nothing. And he still needed to be here because he was starting to feel like some sort of bomb in the movies, activating the second that you touch it and exploding if you cut the wrong wire.

Coming here extended the time.

He still felt really shaken up on the way back to his Jeep one day, and hadn't really been focusing on where he was walking when he tripped over a headstone and fell to the ground.

He looked at the name on the headstone for a split second before getting himself back up. "Why do you hate me, Hale?"

Wait a second, Hale? As in Derek? That would make sense, then.

He sat back down and examined the headstone. Black marble with gold engraving, but a chunk of the headstone was missing and it looked like someone hated it enough to scratch out the first names.

The important part still remained, even if the first couple of letters were scratched beyond recognition. Beloved mother and father.

These were Derek's parents, the people who taught him everything about the world and who he was. Stiles realized that Derek's whole tough guy act, every part of him that was calculating and focused on survival alone- it was all because of what happened to his family.

Feeling responsible for the death of his family is the sole emotion that defined Derek's personality now. That was how much he loved them, that he let their loss be every part of who he was.

The police report was confidential, but that never stopped Stiles when he was curious. He knew what had happened, that Derek had a thing going on with Allison's aunt when they were his age, and that she ended up betraying him. The report was completed recently when she died.

He didn't really think about it too much, which was probably a dick move. Derek still scared him a little bit, but putting the report in perspective kind of…humanized Derek. Made him a lot less cold and lot more tortured and broken.

Stiles wondered what kind of person Derek would be if it hadn't happened, if they were still alive. Not the whole Peter Hale not becoming an alpha, Scott not turning, and preventing the whole catastrophe of their lives from triggering in the first place, but right now, how they would approach everything.

Derek would have someone to guide him right now, in being an alpha. Stiles might have someone to talk to about all of this, how to handle it.

"I'm Stiles", he started suddenly. "Don't worry, you don't know me or anything, but I know your son, Derek. We're not incredibly close or anything, but he's saved my life a handful of times, and I've gotten a save in myself, if you count me keeping him safe in my house so people don't track him down."

To people who had burned alive in their homes, it probably didn't mean too much. "I bet he's a lot different now from when you last saw him. Jaded, battle-worn, I guess. Don't be disappointed in him, especially if he doesn't drop in to see you guys. Derek's a lot of things, but he loves you more than any of us can understand."

Stiles wondered if he'd even talk to Derek's parents if they were still alive. Maybe he would, even if it were to complain. His mom was probably a good cook- moms are always good at stuff like that in their own way.

Stiles knew that sometimes he missed the smell of freshly baked cookies in his house, missed thinking that someone would be there to look after his Dad. Usually during those days, when he missed the idea of her too much, he'd try and sneak vegetables in his Dad's meals.

He couldn't lose another parent, he didn't think that he could handle it. Standing here, looking at the damaged headstone, he started getting angry at whoever broke it. They were probably really good people, the Hales.

And now, the only smell that Derek could probably feel in the place is the smoke from when it burned down.

"I was at the mechanic's the other day, getting my Jeep fixed up, and there was this weird lizard thing that killed the guy working on my car. I have no idea what happened, but there was this weird slime on the doorknob that I touched, and I suddenly couldn't move."

He never said this stuff to his mom's grave, but it didn't feel like it would be an incredible stretch, talking to Derek's parents about it.

It felt like something that he would maybe talk to Mrs. Hale about while she cooked, or doing something with Mr. Hale.

If they were close, they could fix up their cars together, or play golf or something. He'd find a way to bond with them, if only to get answers.

"It's not a werewolf, that's the only thing that I know about it. It's not an alpha, it's something else. I don't even know what to call it, to be honest."

He took a deep breath. "I'm scared." He said the words softly. "I'm the only one in the group that's not trained, super smart, or bitten, and I don't think I'm going to be able to get out of this one alive. We don't even know who it is, but I think it's either this guy on the lacrosse team, Jackson, or this girl, Lydia."

He stared at the small crack between the word loving and parents. "Lydia was injured really badly by Peter- I know, it sounds crazy, but turns out that he killed Derek's sister, and he bit my friend Scott. But when we checked her over, the wound was gone, so I guess we all assumed that she became a werewolf too, but I don't think anything happened with her on the full moon."

He remembered watching her at the ice rink, how amazing she was at skating and how everything went from maybe going well to Lydia freaking out and screaming at something that she saw in the ice.

"She's been seeing things, and I'm really worried about her. And every time she's ready to talk to me about it, there's something else that comes up. It sucks and it's not fair. I just wish that I could do something to help her."

He wondered why Jackson wasn't doing anything to help. "Jackson's the other guy, he's been looking for the bite since he noticed that Scott had an added boost- I think that he might have gotten it too, but he's still alive and he hasn't been howling or changing into anything with claws or fangs, so I'm still not sure what's going on there. Whatever crazy monster I saw at the mechanic's, though- it recognized me somehow. I know that it saw me, knew that I was paralyzed. But somehow, I'm still here. Why am I still here?"

He was silent for a moment before continuing. "I guess I wouldn't really just be asking about the whole crazy thing in the mechanic situation if I were complaining. I'd probably ask you to control your son. Ask you guys to stop him from converting other people to make a pack for a power boost. Or at least stop him from trying to kill me and my friend, Scott."

He remembered just lying there when the police showed up and waiting around for another mechanic to fix his car. "You have no idea how long it took me to get my car back today. Almost lost my life for the thing, and I still don't know why. I guess I'd feel better if I had some guidance. But I'll keep you guys updated in case Derek doesn't visit. Someone…someone should visit you guys."

He left the cemetery feeling a lot better about the situation, like whatever made him paralyzed before had fully worn off or something. He went to the lacrosse game, knowing fool well that he would be benched again, but he didn't mind too much.

He didn't mind getting Gerard Argent's keys and he was almost cheerful at the idea of talking to Lydia about her problems as soon as he got what he needed from the new principal.

And then the pack ambushed him before they all realized that the creature that attacked him was right there in the school. It took out Erica in the blink of an eye and paralyzed Derek right when Stiles thought that the goo that was on his hands at the mechanic's couldn't possibly have an effect on wolves.

He had walked over to the headstone at the end of the night, and it wasn't his mother that he was looking to talk to. He wasn't shaken up this time out of fear for his life.

It was because holding someone up in freezing cold pool water still wasn't good enough to be trusted- didn't even warrant a thank you.

"You", he said, pointing at the name Hale. "I have a bone to pick with you about your son. Hi, by the way. Nice to talk to you again."

He was still drenched from the pool, was starting to shiver, but didn't care. Stiles didn't even care that it was one in the morning, that he was beyond exhausted, that his Dad didn't know where he was, and that his phone was at the bottom of the pool.

"Derek and his stupid wolf pack corner me while I'm trying to complete a task in order to pump me for information about the stupid lizard, and it's because I got cornered that the weird snake thing attacked us, a Kanima, it turns out. The thing has a name, and Derek knew because it was scared of its reflection."

Stiles rubbed his hands together to try and get warm. "That's not even what irritates me. It's that even after all of the ridiculousness- me keeping him in my room for months until his name was cleared, and let me tell you, he is _not_ a restful sleeper."

He took a deep breath, which sounded more like shaking. "I don't know if it's from all of the running, but he woke up so startled that I thought that he was going to start screaming every time, and that was almost three times in one night, every night. I had to keep him out of sight from my Dad, who's a Sheriff, and since he thinks that I'm already up to something, that wasn't easy."

You don't trust me, I don't trust you. But that wasn't how it worked. Stiles didn't think of it that way, at least.

"And then after he got paralyzed and I had to hold onto him for two hours in a pool, instead of realizing that it was because I don't want him to die, he automatically assumed that I was only keeping him from drowning because I needed him to keep me alive."

They were on the same side. It might not have seemed that way at first, but that's what it was. They were against the Argents and the Kanima. If they weren't on the same side, then the chances of Stiles coming out of all of this alive were even slimmer than to begin with.

And his arms were hurting.

"Look, I know I'm not the biggest guy", he said, holding his arms out. "But I would never just use somebody as a human shield. It's not like we're best friends or anything, but if I just wanted to stay alive, I would have cut out the extra weight and just floated around in the water forever. And what I don't get is why that thing that attacked us backed off at the mechanic's and was afraid of the water."

He thought of the phone that he would have to pay to replace. The one that should have gotten them both out of trouble, but didn't. He wasn't sure who he was more mad at- Derek for being closed off and not trusting him, or Scott for hanging up on him, probably to be with Allison.

He remembered telling Scott that he didn't buy how he should cut Allison out of his life to survive against the Alpha, and he was pretty sure that Scott was safe.

But Scott keeping this up with Allison was going to get Stiles killed. Maybe it was a different countdown on Stiles- coming here wasn't stopping him from losing his mind, the countdown was to how long he was going to make it, and he couldn't extend his time.

He was a sitting duck.

"I need to find a way to keep myself alive, but I don't know what it is yet. And I know that I shouldn't assume that Scott's my on-call guard from the bad-guys. I know he's not always going to be there. I guess I just thought he'd have my back more. That there'd be someone that I could always count on."

His life had changed because his friend had turned into a werewolf, and he needed to be there for him. Stiles was always there.

"Great", he said out loud, feeling like an idiot. "Looks like Stiles needs a Stiles."

Didn't feel like he was much of a help these days anyway. Great for getting information, but not good at defending himself.

"I'm not mad at them", he said softly. "I'm not mad", he repeated before figuring that he should get going before Dad figured out that he wasn't in bed like he was supposed to be.

He might have stayed longer if he knew that the next time he really needed this place, he wouldn't be allowed to go anywhere.

Stiles had felt better, maybe not strong, but good enough to not visit for a while. But then they found out that Matt was the one who could control Jackson, who ended up being the Kanima. He was relieved that it wasn't Lydia, at least.

Turned out that Matt was trying to off an old swim team because they pushed him in a pool when he was a kid and almost drowned. Wasn't exactly a good case as to why he decided to try and kill them all. But that wasn't what Stiles had been worried about.

What he was worried about was the fact that Matt almost killed his dad, and Stiles had been paralyzed by Jackson. So while he was stretching his arms out, trying to help his dad or do something, all he could do was struggle.

Struggle and watch. And ask himself if he could handle losing another parent, if he could bear it. Asking himself whether it was better to lose Dad suddenly or to see Mom slowly deteriorating.

Did it matter how fast the timer was going? Years against months against seconds? The conversations of how he would have to continue life without them while they're still living or conversations that never started?

When the police had questioned him, Stiles answered the best he could without giving away the specifics of wolves, full moons, or scales. He wanted to come back here, to the cemetery, but Dad took him back home, sent him to bed, and guarded the house as best as he could.

They were both terrified that something could happen, and they both would give up their own lives to protect the other's.

Dad couldn't sleep, but Stiles felt that he was on the verge of having a panic attack. The frustrating part was that it hadn't happened yet, but he knew that it was going to.

More like a light panic attack all of the time instead of the short bursts of full-blown panic that took over, but had an end. When he was a kid, he thought it was bad, but it was worse now. It was draining, and he couldn't do anything to stop it. There were no tricks to use, medications to try out, just the constant and overwhelming fear that at any given second, something was going to destroy them all and there was nothing that he could do to stop it. In knowing that, the one sentence that was taunting him, echoing in his head.

That first night in the woods, I took Scott because I needed a new pack- it could have easily been you.

He could have avoided feeling this way if he just said yes, but he didn't. And when something happened, he was going to die. And even though the panic attack might die down if he just went to the cemetery and talked it out, maybe even screamed or cried, he wasn't going anywhere.

Instead of sneaking out, Stiles stayed in his room. He went to the guidance counselor because it was forced on him, but it wasn't the same. What came out was the filtered version of the truth, leaving all of the important details out because they were hard to explain. He didn't feel better. The panic didn't stop, and all he was told to do was keep going.

Strange how talking to a broken headstone with no response made him feel better than a trained professional.

And the second that things started looking up in the lacrosse game, he was kidnapped by Allison's crazy grandfather, and beaten in the basement of her home in front of Derek's chained up wolf puppies before her dad let him walk home.

Stiles felt like he deserved the beating, since he was sarcastic and couldn't control his mouth at the one time where he should have. He went home alive with an excuse to his Dad that wasn't his best work, and asked to be left alone.

Dad remembered the highlights of the night when it felt like they never happened. Called him a hero, but Stiles didn't feel like he won the game. If he did, then why was he constantly being the damsel in distress that needed to be rescued? And why had it gotten so damn bad that he needed one of the villains to rescue him?

Stiles stood here in front of the headstone, after it all seemed to have worked out. Except Gerard was dying and disappeared, Jackson was a werewolf now, and it looked like Scott and Allison were broken up.

He should have been happy to still be alive after being beaten up and then driving his Jeep into a building and hitting Jackson with it. Jackson, who was back together with Lydia now.

Stiles was still in love with her, and couldn't understand why she couldn't see it. He flat out told her that he would be devastated if they lost her, risked his life to try and help her, but she still ran to Jackson.

Stiles would have loved her every second from now until forever, but she didn't want that. And he couldn't understand it.

Just like he couldn't understand why Gerard let him stay there, beat up on the basement floor, but still alive. Why he couldn't finish the job and kill him like he intended.

He said that he wanted Scott to look for him, but he already knew where Scott was. If they had hunted down Erica and Boyd looking for Derek, then why did they take him? Didn't they have everything that they needed?

"I guess you guys are tired of listening to me talking", he said to the headstone. "But hey, at least I'm still around to bug you guys, that's got to be something, right?"

"What are you doing here?"

Stiles turned around. It looked like Derek did visit his parents. And saw him here talking to his parents.

He jumped up to his feet. "Just leaving." He turned his back on Derek, hoping to run away, get the hell out of here.

He made it five feet before a hand grabbed his shoulder and spun him around. "Look, I'm sorry, I didn't do anything- the break in the headstone was there long before I started coming around", Stiles tried to explain quickly. "I won't come back here again, I promise."

"You've been here before?"

"Did I say that? This was the first time, I found it on accident."

"You're lying." Derek said evenly, his hand still on Stiles' shoulder, and examining him closely. "What happened to you?"

"Just lacrosse", Stiles answered lamely.

Derek's eyes narrowed. "The same lacrosse game that Jackson died in?"

"Well, that didn't stick, did it?" Stiles laughed

"Tell me what happened."

The answer spilled out the second that Derek touched the black-eye. Probably to put pressure on it to make him say what was going on, but Stiles backed away the second he came into contact. "Gerard took me after the game, okay? And I wouldn't tell him where either one of you were, so he beat me around a little bit before Chris Argent caught on to what was happening and let me, Erica, and Boyd go home."

"Gerard had Erica and Boyd?" Derek asked

Stiles nodded.

"And even after he tortured you, you still didn't tell him where I was?"

"Well, he was more concerned with Scott finding me, to be honest", Stiles admitted. "But no."

"You didn't say a word?"

"Of course not."

Derek nodded, and was silent for a second. "If you told him something, I would have understood. Your life was on the line."

Stiles looked back at the headstone before looking back at Derek. "I'm not going to let you put me on the list of people who betrayed you. I'm human, but I'm not a hunter."

"You'll start running instead, just like Erica and Boyd."

"Nah, I'm not fast enough."

"You could be." Derek told him.

"I already turned it down once, but you never know." Derek raised an eyebrow. "Before the Kanima and you becoming the Alpha, Peter forced me to take him to the hospital and break into Scott's Wi-Fi. He offered me the bite as a reward, and I said no."

"Why?"

It might have been an easier solution for his nerves to have gone to Derek a couple of weeks ago to ask for the bite, but that wasn't the right call. Especially since there was a chance that it wouldn't work and that he would die.

"I'm not going to make a decision like that in a moment of weakness", he answered.

"You just might be the wisest of us all."

A compliment? From Derek?

"Yeah, well", he said, scratching his head nervously. "Look, I'm sorry I've been coming around here and talking to your parents' headstone."

"I know you didn't break off that part, the Argents did a couple of months after I buried them. Crossed out the names too- thought it would be…dehumanizing."

And then he realized why Derek probably didn't visit. "It reminds you of what happened to them, doesn't it?"

"I don't need a reminder."

And that was why he kept waking up when he was living in Stiles' room. Nightmares that he wouldn't talk about. Derek had been suppressing his own near-panic attack for ten years.

Understanding led Stiles to do something before he could even think about stopping himself. He walked over to Derek, said "Stand still", wrapped his arms around him, and held him there. Derek's body froze, and he just stood there, not knowing what to do.

As if human contact and trusting was a completely foreign idea to him now. As if having an ally wasn't even a feasible option.

Stiles stepped back, and looked a stunned Derek in the eye. "I trust you. You trust me."

Before he could respond, Stiles walked away from the tombstone. And even though he hadn't said much to Mr. and Mrs. Hale, he felt better than he had in a long time.

The clock in his head stopped ticking for now.


End file.
